Hey all!
I am in a peculiar situation.. I had to move to another country a couple of weeks ago and sold all my consoles and games.... I had been collecting for over 15 years and had most home systems and arcade games.
But now it's all sold and I am starting fresh in Japan. I wanted to keep the systems to a minimum but still ended up wanting to buy 4 consoles... famicom, super famicom, neo geo, ps1.
None of them are especially expensive nor hard to find, BUT many games are getting really expensive and difficult to find CIB.
And since my space is VERY limited in our standard japanese apartment, I started to check about the availible flashcards.. and there are indeed a lot of nice ones to get.. but.. always when I sat down with an emulator och softmodded my wii and put all the systems I could find in there.. but I always ended up just testing game after game and never finish anything. . So I am actually a bit worried that it will all loose it's magic if I get the flashcarts for these systems. .. except ps1.
Did you play more or less after getting your power pack, ever drive , sd2snes etc etc??
Should I get the flash carts to save space and money or should I get the CiB games I *really* need and end up spending a lot more than I probably should?
How did you do? Do you play more now when you got it?
Please let me know
Get the flash card to save on money, space, and wear & tear on your system's cartridge contacts. But you also should change your gameplaying habits to be less ADD / flicking through 100 television stations, and more like choosing 1 good wine for the night and enjoying its qualities & quirks. That's how you avoid the danger of the "shallowness" of flash carts.
I just want an SD2SNES flash cart to test stuff I and other homebrewers have made, but I plan to keep my collection. I might play impossibly expensive games on it though.
It didn't change. I used to play very little, and continued to do so after buying flashcarts. I really don't play much, but when I do, I end up using emulators, because it's more convenient. That's sad, I know...
I sometimes wonder why but I really really feel that I want to have the originals.. with their boxes and manuals that I always belive I will read and look at BUT NEVER DO
... that's the reason I always collected the originals before :/... but i really never read them damn manuals anyway
..
Perhaps i should really limit myself to 1 title per evening instead to really experience the quality of it. Even though it's hard/bad?
tokumaru wrote:
It didn't change. I used to play very little, and continued to do so after buying flashcarts. I really don't play much, but when I do, I end up using emulators, because it's more convenient. That's sad, I know...
Emulators are not sad as long as you play
. I just bought and bought and collected for so many years thinking I would play a lot but didn't play at all
.. that's sad.
I tend to play everything through my PowerPak. I might own the original cartridge for a game, but it's easier just to leave the PowerPak in the system all the time.
Oh yeah, the few times I do play on the console I use flashcarts instead of the actual carts I do own.
I play my NES/Famicom and SNES (using SD2SNES) just as much after owning a PowerPak as I did before. There was no change in my gaming behaviour.
Any game I don't already own on cart I play on my PowerPak (and make an effort to try and get the cart so that I don't feel like I'm playing pirated stuff).
Didn't change anything for me. Of course I'm an elitist bastard to whom anything less than 10/10 is not worth my time, and so each console has just a handful of games I want to play anyway.
Thanks for all the info
. I guess I'll buy the games I really really want and also buy a everdrive for the rest. But I will polly buy the everdrive first and the cib later.. next up is to decide if I need the sd2snes or just super everdrive ... did anyone try and change the region on a pal rom to get it to play in a Japanese super famicom? Mostly thinking about games like asterix and such that only got pal release
I use mostly flash carts, only because since I've pretty much exhausted the gameplay out of any of the remotely popular or commonly available SNES or N64 games. So with a flash cart I can play the really obscure ones.
As far as holding onto the games, I grew up with siblings, so it's tough to say who owned what games exactly since there was a common understanding that even though one person's name was on the gift wrapping, it was for everyone-- (pooled risk, we got more good games in total this way). So, to this day I (we) just keep most of the games, boxes, and manuals at my mother's house.
Too late obviusly, but I'm wondering if bytestorm considered the possibility of just having relatives with some extra space to hold onto some cherished stuff for a decade or so, instead of selling it all. The flashcart is really super-convenient for space for me but nothing beats the emotional reaction of picking up for example the Pilotwings or Super Mario World 2 SNES box and cartridge, or the N64 Blast Corps box and cartridge.
I kind of hate the emulation experience because of all the power on boot / booting logo / screen mode fade in and outs /main menu / other crap. For me there really is that need to hear the power click on and get into the game immediately. I only desire flash carts that will basically just be a few button presses at most to start the game up, and that's one of the reasons I picked the SD2SNES. (I would die inside without access to Megaman X2, or Super Mario Kart).
I only own an EMS 64M, an EZ-Flash IV, and R4 Gold Pro (2016 edition). I don't play games with them actually. I use them for homebrew and hardware verification (i.e. test ROMs). I do enjoy putting demos on them.
I suppose I'm a strange case. Personally, I really enjoy owning the original game media. I've been expanding my collection since last September, and my Game Boy library alone has doubled easily. Even so, I prefer to play all my games on emulators if it's on the GB/GBC. For GBA and DS games, I just use my DS. This probably has to do with me not wanting to fiddle around with rechargeable AA or AAA batteries. I have an SP, but the battery life is not so good these days. Maybe if I got a new battery for the SP I'd be more inclined to use it.
I think there's validity to flash carts "taking some of the magic away" but it's also a personal thing.
I personally have a nostalgia for the carts, the manuals, even the boxes. I was one of those people that kept every scrap of paper and tried to keep it in immaculate condition. Even so, I don't like to keep the boxes (for Nintendo games) unless it's one of my absolute favorites.
Unless you're JP Moneybags, everything you keep is going to be a tradeoff for something that you can't afford. Buy that box, (or hold onto it instead of selling it) and there's a game you can't enjoy. Buy that rare, expensive, shitty game, and there's a good game that's slightly less rare missing from your collection. Along the way I've had to fight urges to keep games that I knew I'd never play, but there are so many good games for so many consoles. I've ended up finding a good balance, I feel, to where if something is good, I'll keep it, and if it has a unique idea worth noting but not great execution, I'll keep it, and if it's bad but legitimately fun to play with friends, (like Alf, not Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) I'll keep it. If it doesn't have one of those things going for it then it's keeping me from having more fun titles.
To bring it to the topic of the flash cart, it's hard to deny that the entertainment value for that one purchase is going to be higher than any other cart for the system, so yeah, with or without collecting that would be my first purchase. I actually artificially limit myself to no serious playing of a game I don't own. I could say this was for license reasons but I just like to give myself more enjoyment from the process of game collecting. Its a choice I make to spend time and money on it, so I'd like to get as much from it as I can. I do the same with not looking up answers to game problems. Otherwise I'd just be cheating myself out of an experience for which I paid.
I like to bust out the cart and the manual when I'm showing my friends a new game. The entire tactile experience is tied to nostalgia. After everyone is familiar with it, if the mapper permits it, it's a lot easier to just take the flash cart.
I think I have less trouble with having the patience to give a game a full playthrough than getting friends to have the patience to play more than a bit of a game. All things considered, I think, even subconsciously, people may be more inclined to give a cart a little more play. Doesn't mean that cart won't come right out though if it's not delivering the fun.
My advice, on any of it, flash carts, which games, which boxes, manuals, are to get the things that will bring you enjoyment, but pay attention not to confuse what will bring you enjoyment with what's hot and collectible. Some people may get more enjoyment out of an Action 52 on the shelf than a great hidden gem in the NES. Boxes are a liability due to their size and fragility. Manuals can be nice because they have info and don't break the nostalgia.
Shonumi wrote:
This probably has to do with me not wanting to fiddle around with rechargeable AA or AAA batteries. I have an SP, but the battery life is not so good these days. Maybe if I got a new battery for the SP I'd be more inclined to use it.
My sister's GBC had a rechargeable third-party battery pack, so it acted just like a SP or a DS - plug it in to charge, then play 10h, repeat. No removing batteries and putting them to a separate charger. I bet you could get new ones from aliexpress or similar today.
Likewise, if I play something regularly and it was widely released in the United States for a console that I own, I make a point of buying it on cartridge.
calima wrote:
My sister's GBC had a rechargeable third-party battery pack, so it acted just like a SP or a DS - plug it in to charge, then play 10h, repeat. No removing batteries and putting them to a separate charger. I bet you could get new ones from aliexpress or similar today.
Yeah, I've thought about that before. As a kid, I used to have power cords that would let you plug in your my GB Pocket or GBA into the nearest socket for unlimited playtime (as long as you pay your electric bills...) But for me, my GBC and original GBA are not really viable options these days. Not having built-in lighting is in older GB models is what drives me to use my SP (I'm not into modding handhelds at all either). I mean, once you've seen the light, you just can't go back
Now my GB Pocket, I still very much would enjoy. The contrast slider makes a world of difference.